just ducky
by lisa horak

Sallie Broach, owner of Just Ducky Originals, believes there’s a difference in the way men and women run their businesses. For Sallie, who manufactures classic children’s clothing, success is more about producing a timeless, high-end product in a family-friendly environment and less about the financial bottom line.

She has come to this conclusion over the past 25 years of owning her business and learning exactly what her niche is in the marketplace. Moreover, she has also learned how to make the business work not only for herself but also for the women across the country who sew, assemble, and sell her designs. For all involved, flexibility is the name of the game. Employees who have the freedom to balance both work and family are bound to stick around a little longer and work a little harder, benefiting both their businesses and families.

Sallie began Just Ducky Originals in 1980 when she and another woman, both teachers at the time, decided it was time for a change. “We both loved fabric, and although we had no kids at the time we started sewing children’s clothes. I took them over to my sister in Charlotte who had an 18-month-old, and she showed them to her friends and we started taking orders to make custom clothes,” says Sallie.

And that is how Just Ducky has operated ever since. Here’s how it works. First, Sallie designs a line of 50-70 pieces of clothing and then makes roughly 40 sets of samples. She then ships the “trunks,” or sets of samples, to a network of 275 women all over the country who hold home shows to introduce Just Ducky clothing to an ever-expanding clientele. Then the fun really begins. Customers get to customize the basic garment by choosing the fabric, embroidery, and trim from a smorgasbord of seasonal options. The orders come back to Sallie to be hand-made at her factory in Alexander, N.C. The samples get sent on to another hostess in another town. Eventually all the samples return to Sallie and are sold at Just Ducky’s retail shop on Charlotte Street in Asheville or at their second location in Waynesville.

Sallie has learned the ins and outs of running a business without any formal training. She grew up in Atlanta, majored in music, and was a teacher for many years. “Initially I was so naïve, but maybe that was good because I was fearless. I didn’t know what not to do. And I was very fortunate to have had a very supportive spouse who encouraged me to keep it going when we weren’t making a lot of money. His salary also made it possible to not focus solely on the bottom line. I really like what we do, and that is my primary motivation,” Sallie says.

Growing her business to where it is now has been a long process. “When we started out we tried selling the clothes to some stores in Asheville, but we quickly realized that to sell store-to-store we would have to wholesale our products. If we sold them ourselves, we could retail, which we needed to do to have some sort of salary. We also realized early on that without a factory we couldn’t produce high volumes of clothing. That’s why the home show formula works so well, because we can fill specific orders in stead of trying to mass-produce,” explains Sallie.

Sallie believes a man would have run Just Ducky completely differently. For one thing, a man may have moved the business off-site a lot sooner. But Sallie wanted to be with her kids. “There were lots of years where I kept the business in my home and had cutting tables in my attic alongside a playpen for my kids. About ten years ago when it started taking over the living room and I realized I needed to keep my sanity, we moved the business out of our home,” she says.

She has also led by example. Right now she has primarily a staff of women who, like her, want to be home with their kids and still earn an income. “There is, incidentally, one male employee who is a cutter,” says Sallie, “but needless to say, he is also our jack of all trades, doing many repairs, etc.” Right now Just Ducky has 25 factory employees and about 25 home seamstresses. For the latter and for the women who have the trunk shows to sell the garments, the key is that they can do it on their own time, a priceless perk in the job world.

Sallie’s formula is clearly working. Like the roots of a tree, her clothes travel far and wide, reaching new audiences who favor Just Ducky’s clean, simple lines, smocking, and tasteful touches. The clothes also resonate with an older generation that remembers when all clothing was handmade with great care, unlike most of today’s commercial kid’s clothes.

“At our Charlotte Street store we get a lot of traffic from grandparents who are staying at the nearby Grove Park Inn who want something traditional for their grandchildren,” says Sallie. Young moms are drawn to the clothes as well, an act of rebellion against the trendy, precocious clothes children wear today, dressing like teenagers even before they can walk.

With her own daughters now 23 and 17 years old, Sallie looks forward to someday dressing her own grandchildren in the clothes she creates.

Till then, however, life for Sallie Broach remains Just Ducky.

Lisa Horak lives in south Asheville with her husband and two daughters, Molly and Isabel. In her spare time she hikes, makes beaded silverware, knits, volunteers in classrooms, leads a Brownie troop, and dreams of writing children’s books.